Servants of God

I'm going to remove the extra level there. One thing I've discovered is I get older. I don't want to really get reading glasses, so... But things sometimes need to be further away from me, but it would be able to read them. I used to laugh at people doing that. That's when I was young, and I thought they were old. Now I'm finding out they weren't that old, just that I was young. Anyways... I did want to remember to welcome some guests and visitors here, and we're glad to have you here. I think, as Mr.

Orleman said, I didn't expect it to be this big of a crowd today, because I knew so many people would be away. So, very glad to have all of you here. For those of you teens that aren't in Michigan, I can sympathize. I sometimes miss activities, but there will be other ones. Well, brethren, one of the things we've been trying to emphasize in the church, I think even more recently, but it's always been there, is focusing on Christ-like service.

We want to be servants to each other. The Bible has a lot to say about serving, about servants. As a matter of fact, when I was preparing this, I got out my concordance as I want to do. A lot of times when I know I want to speak on a subject, I say, well, I want to make sure I haven't missed any scriptures that address the topic.

When you get to servants and serving, you go through a few pages dealing with that. That's how often it shows up. If you're reading a story in the Bible, if there's any person of importance or wealth, it's a given that he or she typically has servants. People that are attached to them that serve them in certain ways. That makes sense in a sense. Sense in a way. We as Christians, we want to be servants of God. We want to serve each other.

There are many places in the Bible where Jesus Christ Himself is referred to as the servant of God. As I said, looking through the concordance, I saw several of the prophets. You'll find that label. So-and-so, servant of God. Isaiah was named that. Jeremiah at different times. One in particular that I'll mention later, Moses, was named as the servant of God. I think something like three or four dozen times.

That was his title. So there must be something to this subject. I think it's worth us emulating some of these servants. But what does it mean to be a servant? In many places, the term in the Old King James, and sometimes even in the New King James, that's translated servant, a more proper translation would be slave. So all that's like, well, we here in the United States especially, we're kind of touchy about the issue of slavery.

I think of that. I don't know if many of you are aware of it, but this coming up in April will be the beginning of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which slavery was a pretty important part of that. So we're touchy about, oh, I don't want to be a slave. Slavery is evil. I don't want to make anyone a slave. I don't want to be a slave. So should we think, well, we'd be servants of God only, not of any men?

Or is it okay to be servants of men? Well, I'll reference a couple of scriptures here that we'll get to later. Romans 6, 22, Paul tells us, he told the Romans, that we should be servants or slaves of God. So that sounds pretty clear. We're willing to be servants or slaves of God. But also in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 19, he said something interesting. He said, I've made myself a slave to all men.

He went on to say he became all things to all men, that he might by all means convince some. Well, I want to get down to the bottom of this and spend a little time. So I want to consider some examples in the Bible of men who were servants.

But I want to look at people who were servants to God's servants. In other words, they were serving a man who was a servant of God. Now, in almost all these cases, we could find other places. There are plenty of times where someone's a servant to someone who's not serving God at all. But that's not the focus we necessarily want.

We all want to be servants of God. Can we also be effective servants to another person and still serve God? Well, think about that. We've got a strong tendency in our human nature, which we're trying to overcome, towards pride, vanity, the ego that often gets inflated. Don't tell me what to do. I know better. I've been doing this a lot longer than you. So it could be very challenging to be a servant of someone else. But we know that one of our missions is to conquer our vanity.

Paul says we're to put to death the old man, put on a new man in Christ. So I think it's going to be worthwhile to consider, as I said, some of these biblical examples. I'll mention one of the things that inspired this. I've been working on this sermon off and on for like two, two and a half months, it seems. That's the nice thing about getting the schedule well in advance. Oh, I was going to say thank you, Mr.

Hopkins, but he's not here. One of the things that first put in my mind is when Mr. Stiver revealed to us that he'd been asked to leave and go down to the home office, that he was going to become an assistant to Mr. Lucer. I thought, well, he's becoming a servant to someone who's trying to serve God. I thought, huh, that's probably happened a lot of times. Some examples started popping up in my mind of characters in the Bible who made themselves servants to someone else who was serving God in a more direct way.

I thought, there's got to be some important lessons for us in that. But before we get into reading some of those adventures, it might be good to review some definitions. And here's where I'm going to slog through some Hebrew and Greek. And I'm not good at Hebrew and Greek, but I love that Strongness Concordance.

It's good for that. So, let's look at some of the various Hebrew and Greek words that get translated into servant and see if they give us some insight. Because I thought, could it be possible that where it says servant, it could have just as well been interpreted executive assistant, or maybe highly respected and well-paid administrative assistant who is not really in very much inferior position? I'm glad some of you kept it.

A lot of hyphens in that title. Or perhaps, maybe instead of servant, it should say companion or friend. Well, you might think that. And sometimes when you see the way a servant is treated, you might think that. But I dug in. I found that the most common Hebrew word that's translated servant—and I did a lot of this in the Old King James, so sometimes it's translated as something else in the New—but the most common word was the Hebrew, ebed.

E-B-E-D. I'm not sure exactly of the Hebrew pronunciation, but the Strong's number is 5650. What does ebed mean? Its literal translation is bondage, or someone who is bound. Or, to put it in an English word, a slave. Someone who is legally bound, and sometimes even physically bound.

They're forced to be in that service. Now, that doesn't fit with that highly paid and respected administrative assistant. Ebed is the word that's used in the large majority of times in the Old Testament. But it doesn't always have to be an entirely negative connotation. As I said, in America, when we think slavery, I wonder how many of you saw Roots when it was on 25 years ago?

You can't see all the young people aren't here, so a lot of you have. It's still worth watching. I saw a commercial recently. I think some updated version is coming out on high-definition DVD or something. But when you see the way slaves were literally treated in America, we think, oh, there's no instance where any of it could be very good.

But there are some. If you want to turn our first scripture, Proverbs 17 too might be a good one to begin. Proverbs 17 and verse 2 shows that it's not necessarily all bad to be a slave if you're a good one, a wise one. I'm glad Mr. Orlin left me his water because you know I like to drink lots of it. Proverbs 17 too says, A wise servant, which could be translated slave, will rule over a son who causes shame. So better to be a wise slave than a son who causes shame.

It says the slave will share an inheritance among the brothers. So being a slave isn't necessarily all bad if you're wise and you're doing well. Slaves, in our view, don't usually get to share an inheritance. That's why this proverb is so significant. Now, I'm going to talk about him a little bit later, but Abraham's chief servant, Eliezer, was a bondman, a slave. But he was in a position to be sharing that inheritance at one point.

There's another Hebrew word that I want to consider that also shows up. That's shareth, or sharath. Strong's number 8334, if you're wanting to look it up later so you can get the right pronunciation.

Its translation means to do menial service. It could be translated as a waiter, or a valet, or a footman. It's not my buddy who hangs out with me, but it's someone who's doing the dirty work that I don't want to do. Or, I think of an accurate term we like to use these days is gopher.

Not gopher like the animal or the basketball team up in Minnesota. But when you tell someone, go for this, go for coffee for me, go for... They're not making the decisions, they're just going and doing what they're told. There are some times, though, I wanted to mention, this term was used when it describes Joshua serving Moses.

He was his personal assistant. But it's somewhat of a menial service. The same term appears many times in Leviticus, but it's there it's translated as minister, as in the Levites ministering the service of the temple. I thought about that.

That sounds pretty exalted to me. I always thought the Levites were special. They did great things. And they did. They did have a very special service. But I thought, now wait a minute. You're there at the temple, the priests bring out the animals, and they slit the throat, and they say the prayers, burn the incense.

And then the Levites step in, and they have to do the butchering. Now, I worked a brief time doing a little bit of butchering. I don't know if any of you remember the restaurant Fuddruckers, which you've got to say very carefully. One of the big things about that restaurant is they bring in four quarters. You can look through the window and see this big hunk of a cow there. They have employees. I did this for a while. You take it down, and you have to cut it up and grind it into hamburger.

And it's dirty, messy work. I think after the Levites did that, then they have to clean up. And all of a sudden, that's not very prestigious. That's what this shareth means. It's low menial work or service. It's still not bondage, but it's not, as I said, prestigious. Let's consider some of the Greek. In Greek, there are three words, but two of them show up the most. And I want to get this out of the way, because we'll see that they overlap.

They correspond pretty closely. Once again, in the New Testament, the word that is translated as servant comes from one Greek word much more than the others. That word is doulos. D-U-O-L-O-S. Doulos. And it means simply slave. It's a very close approximation of the Hebrew e-bed. It's someone who's bound, at least legally, if not physically. Now, the two scriptures I quoted from Paul earlier, where he said, we're to be servants of God, that comes from doulos.

We're to be slaves of God. But Paul also said, I make myself a servant or a slave to all men. Likewise, Matthew 20, verse 27. Let's turn to that one, if you will. Matthew 20 and verse 27.

This is good for us to keep in mind, because when you hear about how bad being a personal assistant or a slave is, you think, well, I don't want to do that. But Christ has some interesting things to say about that.

There. Matthew 20, verse 27. He says, whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave. I've got my new King James up here. Here it's translated, slave and the old King James servant. But if you want to be first, you've got to be willing to get down and be like a slave. I guess the counter you could say, well, I don't want to be first.

I'm willing to be third, so I don't have to be a slave. I'm not sure that's what he had in mind here. Now, there's a related term. It doesn't show up as often, but I thought it was interesting. It's pace. P-A-I-S. And I have a strong number for that as 3816. And that word is often translated servant, but I found it intriguing. It doesn't show up very many times.

But the literal translation would be, someone who can be beaten with impunity. Often applied to like a young child or a slave. So it's somebody that you have so much in your power, you can apply corporal punishment and nothing can be done to you because they belong to you. Now, it doesn't mean you should do it blatantly or randomly to hurt someone, but it's funny, I look out, I see Connor. He's not to the corporal punishment stage yet, but when the time comes, he'll be so much in our power that we can do that in the right way without suffering punishment for it.

Well, depending on what you don't do in the grocery store with... No time for child-rearing, that's a different topic to cover. But one particular case, a story that we know very well, not parable, but a story when Jesus Christ was traveling and a centurion sent someone to him saying, My servant is sick, come and heal, or will you heal him?

The word for that one was the paius. It was that the centurion's servant was one who could be beaten with impunity. I don't think it was a young child. It was probably someone who just held in his service. Let's move along here so I can finish my vocabulary lesson for today. The other word is diaconos. D-I-A-K-O-N-O-S. And again, for those who are keeping track, the Strong's number is 1248. And this one is a very close approximation to the Hebrew of Shireth. It means a personal attendant. Someone who does menial service.

Like I said, it could be like a valet or a butler. Jesus used the word diaconus. We're in Matthew, if you turn a couple pages over to Matthew 23, in verse 11. Matthew 23 verse 11, But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant, your diaconos, your personal attendant, your menial servant. When I read that, I thought of when we keep the Passover and we discuss the footwash.

One of the things we always like to remind ourselves is that Christ set the example. And he did the job that is usually done, we're told, by the lowest ranking servant in the household. The most menial servant is the one that washed the people's feet. Like if a guest came in, some servant would come in. And that's what this word applies to. You're the diaconos. You're the one that the highest thing you get to do is wash someone's feet. Of course, in Christianity, we turn that around and say it's a great honor to wash someone's feet, especially if it's someone that's on the way to becoming a son of God.

So we turn it around and say whoever is greatest will apply, take on this role that society said is the lowest most menial. Now, you might wonder by this time, what's Frank getting at? Why are we spending so much time on all these definitions? Does it matter that much? Well, I think because Christ used servants so many times in his parables and his teaching, maybe it does. He gave us some very clear direction in this regard. So let's look at some of those to see what Christ had to say about us taking on the role of an Ibed, or a Shareth, or a Diaconos.

We'll turn back to Matthew 10. This worked out very conveniently, having a lot of Scriptures in Matthew all at once. I'd like to say I planned it that way, but it's partly accidental. But don't tell anybody I told you that. Matthew 10 and we'll look in verse 25. He says here, it's enough for a disciple, that's a student, that he be like his teacher, and a servant, that is a dulos, a slave, that he be like his master.

So if you want to be like your master, or you say you're going to be like your master, it's typical, a slave should try to emulate and desire to be like him. Jesus presented this in the context of saying, by being my servants, you're going to suffer.

Because Christ said, I'm going to suffer. If you look back above that to verse 22, he's telling the disciples there, you're going to be hated by all people for my name's sake. But if you endure to the end, you'll be saved. He said, when they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For surely I say to you, you won't go through all of them before the Son of Man comes. They persecuted me, they're going to persecute you, but it's okay. You're my servants, and you should strive to be like your master.

And another very important lesson, if we turn to Luke 19, we're going to do Luke 19 and beginning in verse 12. I said we want to review some of these scriptures to show us exactly why understanding servanthood is so important. This is a passage that we study fairly often. It's the parable of the pounds. But I want to think of it in terms of who's participating here. We know that the nobleman in this parable represents Jesus Christ, and the servants, or the slaves, represent all of us. In verse 12, we said, a certain nobleman went into a far country to receive from himself a kingdom.

And he called ten of his servants, his doulos, and he delivered them each ten minas, and said, do some business while I'm gone. Here, I'm giving you some money to invest, and I want you to keep serving me, even though I'm not here watching over you. That's an interesting example because it shows to be a good servant means you obey your master and do his will, even if he's not looking right over his shoulder and forcing you to. There's a difference between the good servant and one who's just a servant. And so it woes.

The nobleman has problems with receiving the kingdom, but takes care of that. In verse 15, so it was when he returned, having received the kingdom, he commanded the servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. The first one came and said, Master, your mina has earned ten minas. And he said, what we want to hear him say to us, well done, good servant. Well done, you good slave.

Because you have been faithful and very little, now have authority over ten cities. Now, that's not a surprise. Not that we've never heard that before, but once again, let's think of it in the terms of we're slaves, but we want to do it willingly. We're not like the, you know, in the 1600s when, you know, in Africa, certain men were captured, men and women, and forced into slavery, and hauled across the ocean, and beaten, and lashed, and they were able to do the will of their master.

Here, we have a master that we choose to obey. We're willing to make ourselves slaves, but we don't want to just be there and doing it out of fear or casually.

We want to be the good and faithful servants that excel. And of course, I've often thought when I read this, this is like the heart of American myth. And in the United States, we love the rags-to-riches story, someone who starts out as a menial servant and comes up to actually being a ruler over things. But even though it's part of our American myth, it comes back to here in the Bible anyways.

And I think, you know, scriptures like this are how it got into our way of thinking. And also, I can't help but think of the story of Joseph. His brother sold him into slavery. He ended up going to Egypt and working his way up and then being thrown in prison. And because he was trying to be a good servant to God and to the men who were over him, of course, he ended up being elevated to be in charge over the whole kingdom.

That's something else. Let's turn back to Matthew 24, if you will.

I've got one more saying of Jesus Christ to remind us what we're doing here. Matthew 24 and verse 46. Here's where my system broke down. I should have done this one before the peril of the bowl of the pounds while we were still in Matthew. But this will keep you awake if you turn back and forth a little bit. But here, once again, the doulos. Blessed is that doulos who his master, when he comes, will find so doing. There he's talking about providing food and do season and doing his duties. But it's interesting, once again, I just want to emphasize that we only have one real master to choose from overall. That's Jesus Christ. But we're going to be really blessed if he finds us doing the job he gave us to do. And he knows that we've been doing it all along. Being good servants, not servants that just have to be forced to do what's right.

Now, it comes to my mind, and I didn't just make it up, I got it out of the scripture, and we're going to see that sometimes to be a good servant, a good doulos of Jesus Christ, to fulfill that duty will include, at the same time, being a doulos, or at least a servant obeying someone who is a physical master. We all have human masters in some form or another. Let's turn to Ephesians 6. Ephesians 6 and verse 5. I want to look at a couple of the scriptures here.

And this one I really like because it's going to make a distinction.

Ephesians 6 and verse 5 starts off, bond servants. That's a doulos, people who are held in bondage.

Okay. Why does he have to say, according to the flesh? Why don't you just say, be obedient to your masters? He's making the point that you might have a master according to the flesh, but keep in mind you also have a master according to the spirit. Jesus Christ is our master, whether or not we also have a physical master. So he's telling us, of course, Jesus Christ is the overall ruler. You obey Him above and beyond anything else. But still, as long as your physical master isn't telling you to break God's law, be obedient to your masters in the flesh. How? With fear and trembling. With sincerity of heart. Put your heart into it. Do it with all your might as though to Christ. So in the spirit, we're serving Christ all the time anyways, but apparently, we'll be doing good service to Christ by being obedient to those who are over us in the flesh. Now, of course, in our society, none of us are held in bondage, unless, of course, you have a mortgage, but that's maybe a different story.

That just popped into my head. That's not in my notes. But, you know, most of us have bosses, and some of them are good and some aren't so good. Let's turn to 1 Peter 2. 1 Peter 2, and we'll read verse 18 through 20.

Christ, the earlier scripture, doesn't say, Be an obedient servant if your master deserves it. Or, you know, if he tows the line and treats you real well, Peter here says, Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. If you've got the Old King James, I like that one better, because it says also to the fro-word. And I just like the word fro-word. It's hard to say, but I think in income as you know, Matthew, you can say harsh, but fro-word includes, you know, there's a little more to it. It means being harsh or overly strict when it's not necessary, or sometimes a little bit foolish. So he says, even when you're masculine, of course it's easy to be obedient to a good master that you like, but when one is fro-word, it's a little hard. And he says, do it anyways. For this is commendable if because of conscious towards God, one endures grief suffering wrongfully. So if you're enduring grief when you know you're doing the right thing and you're enduring it because God tells you to, that's good. So what credit is it when you're beaten for your faults if you take it patiently? You know, that's... I remember that as a kid when I get in trouble sometimes, you know, my mom would get out the... I say, she didn't use the belt much. We had Hot Wheel tracks back then. I don't know if the kids... Yeah, those flexible things. That was her... you know, she didn't get the rod or the twig out in the tree. That's the Hot Wheel track. As a matter of fact, I learned it so well, I would hide mine whenever I did something wrong. And it wasn't until later I discovered that she had one hidden herself in her closet. It's hard to outsmart mom, I'll tell you. Anyways, I lost track of where I was now. Yeah. For what credit is it when you're beaten for your faults you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. So there's something to it. If when you're doing good and you still suffer a little, you know, God knows about it. He'll give you credit. And that's a lesson for any employee. Because as I said, sometimes we have good bosses and sometimes not so good. And as I said, I started working on this a couple months ago, and my boss that I worked for for 12 years retired the second week of January.

And he was a pretty good boss. And now I've got a new one who, I'd say, leans more to the froward side. And I don't want to run you out of it. You have to make adjustments. And I've had to say, you know, I think maybe God's allowed me to be in this situation because it's time for me to learn some lessons about that humility and faith and getting rid of that vanity. It's like, oh, it's one thing to look at the Scripture and say, yes, you know, serve the good masters and the bad. But then when you're feeling it, it's like, oh, I can sympathize and I can realize it's not easy to serve the bad master. But we still, we're supposed to do it. We're supposed to do what we can. So with that as somewhat preparation, let's finally look at some specific examples. You know, it's one thing to look at all these terms and say, this is the principle this is what we want to live up to. But let's look at some actual servants who were serving other people and how they handled it. I want to start with a story that I've always found to be inspiring and I think a little romantic. We're going to go to Genesis. If you want to turn back towards Genesis, chapter 15. You know, a lot of the book of Genesis deals with Abraham, the father of the faithful. He was a good person. He served God well. And God made him wealthy. And it turned out, Abraham had a number of servants in his household. But we're going to see one of those servants distinguished himself above all the rest. We'll start in Genesis, chapter 15, right in verse 1. After these things, the word of the eternal came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield and your exceedingly great reward. Always like that, too. It's not on my topic, but sometimes when I've been kind of down, God comes and says, I am your reward. You know, you think you're working for other things, but just having that relationship with God as a reward enough in itself. But then Abram says, Lord God, what are you going to give me? Seeing I go childless. In other words, he knew he had a lot of things here, but in the long term, he said, What good does that do? I don't have any child. And the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. Abram said, Look, you've given me no offspring. Indeed, one born in my heir is my...or born in my house is my heir. Now, what he's referring to is the custom in their society at that time was if you didn't have any children, but you had some wealth to pass on, you probably had a servant, and the senior servant, usually the oldest one, or the most trusted, would inherit your stuff when you died if you didn't have any family to leave it to. And that was Eliezer of Damascus. Now, I sometimes wonder, why was he of Damascus if he was born in Abraham's house? But Abraham moved around quite a bit. Maybe they were in Damascus when Eliezer was born. Maybe his parents were from there. I don't know, but I just kind of like them. It's not just Eliezer. It's Eliezer of Damascus. That's snazzy.

Okay, Eliezer was Abram's abed. He was a bond slave. Abraham owned him. He was in his service. Abram could have treated him badly if he wanted. And Eliezer could have resented being Abram's servant. But I don't think he did. Maybe he was excited. Hey, they're still not having any kids. He's 100 years old. I'm going to get the stuff. And then God intervenes. Verse 4 says, Behold, the word of the eternal kingdom was saying, nope, this one's not going to be your heir. I wonder if Eliezer was within hearing distance, because that's enough to deflate your ego. No, no, not him. I'm going to give you a child with Sarah. He's going to come from your own body. He's going to be your heir. Well, I'm sure he heard it eventually. And if he didn't hear that, he got to experience what we read about in chapter 21. I'm not going to read 21, but that's the story of Isaac being born. He comes on the scene. God promises Abraham and Sarah that they're going to have a son. Sarah laughs about it. She didn't say it like that. We've heard the story many times. She laughed and said, wow. She laughed in herself saying, my Lord's 100 years old and I've gone through the change of life. How could I have children? But God says, no, you're going to. And they did. God worked a great miracle. And then there was poor Eliezer. He was lined up to inherit everything. Now, he's not. He's not the heir anymore, but he is still the e-bed. He's still a bond slave. What's his attitude when it comes to that? Did he say, oh, man, I thought I was going to get out from under his thumb, but now... what's the hope? What's the use? Let's turn to Genesis 24. Because here's where the heart of the story kicks in. It's a romantic, happy story no matter what. We don't want to take the time to read every verse of this chapter, but I want to look at several. Now, Abraham had been Abram. Now he's Abraham, just to trip me up. He was old, well advanced in age. And by the way, the previous chapter, Sarah had died. They'd been together all this time. I remember Abraham's stricken with grief. He buys a burying place. Now he's looking and saying, oh, Isaac's grown up. Sarah's not around anymore. I think Abraham's starting to realize, I'm not going to be around forever. I've got to take care of Isaac. So he's old, advanced in age. The eternal has blessed him in all things. So Abraham says to the oldest servant of his house, who ruled over all that he had. Now, this doesn't say it's Eleazar, but I believe that it was Eleazar. And most of it, I've checked some Bible commentaries, and they presume that it was Eleazar. That's the reason he was the heir. He was the oldest one. And we're going to see some other relationship.

Abraham says to the oldest servant who ruled over his house, Please put your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the eternal, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not take a wife from my son, from among the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell. But I want you to go to the country of my family and take a wife from my son, Isaac. So it looks like Abraham really trusts Eleazar. He only said, I want you to go get a wife from my son. Perhaps, Abraham, he's feeling old and stricken in age. Maybe he doesn't feel like he's up to going back to where he came from. Or maybe since God told him, leave those people, I'm going to give you a promise land. He felt like God doesn't want him going there, but he can send his servant. And the servant says to him in verse 5, Well, what if the woman's not willing to follow me to this land? Should I then take your son back to the land from where you came? Abraham says, No, beware that you do not take my son back there. The Lord God of heaven, who took me from my father's house, from the land of my family, who spoke to me and swore to me, saying to your descendants, I'll give this land. He'll send his angel before you, and you'll take a wife from my son from there. But if the woman's not willing to follow you, then you'll be released from my oath. And finally, don't take my son back there.

So, we're going to set the term straight. Eliezer doesn't seem to balk at being willing to do it, but he wants to know for sure what's your willingness. I mean, it's a very highly trusted mission, but I can see if your boss gives you a sign that sometimes you say, Now, wait a minute, what if this happens? What do you want me to do? So, we got the clarification, and we go forward. And in verse 9, I say, Put his hand into the thigh of Abraham, his master, and swore to him concerning this matter. Abraham feels very strongly, and I say he trusted Eliezer. It's funny, when it says he put his hand under his thigh, that's some type of ritual thing, and I found different interpretations of what that meant. I've actually seen some things that say it's a euphemism that he actually took hold of his genitalia. And to swear that oath, I thought, Boy, they did trust each other.

Because, you know, if you're willing to do that, then you know where we're getting at.

So, that's an important oath. In verse 10, then the servant took ten of his master's camels and departed. For all of his master's goods were under his hand, and he arose and went to Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor. Okay, so Eliezer is the top dog under Abraham, and I guess under Isaac. He's got control of all this stuff. Abraham says, I'm giving you a mission. He loads up ten camels with wealth and such, and goes to fulfill this mission. Now, do you think it ever entered his mind? Say, boy, I got a lot of cool stuff. I'm going to take off, and I'm not coming back. I can live the high life for the rest of my life. I've got jewels and gold and silver and ten camels. I could go tell these people, this is my stuff. I'm a wealthy sheikh living out in the desert. But we know he didn't do that. But I wonder if it ever even crossed his mind. My thought is it probably didn't. It crossed my mind, maybe partly because I've read the parable of the prodigal son, who said, Dad, give me my inheritance, and he went off and squandered it all on wasteful living. But not Eliezer. He goes to where he's going, and verse 11, he makes his camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water in the evening, at the time when the women go out to water. And then what does he do? Then he said, O eternal God of my Master Abraham, please give me success this day, and show kindness to my Master. Interesting. Now, he's doing a couple of things here. One, he's praying to God, the God of the universe.

And at the same time he's doing that, he's acknowledging, he said, My Master Abraham. He's saying, I know my position, and apparently he's not trying to get out of it, because he certainly could have by that time. But he's got somewhat of a relationship with God.

And I'll abbreviate here, we know he asked God to help him, because if you get there, I don't know, they didn't have singles bars back then, they just have the local well, and he knows young women are going to come, so I want to find one that's the right, and basically saying, God, I need you to make this decision. I don't know which one of these is going to be a good wife for Isaac.

So he said, what I'll do is, women come, I'll ask them if they'll give me a drink. And then if one of them says, oh, you can have a drink, and I'll water your camels also, then that'll be the one. And it happens in verse 15, before he'd finished speaking, behold, Rebecca, who was born to Beth the wolf, son of Milka, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother.

That's a way of saying, if I calculated this right, Rebecca was Abraham's great niece. Which means, I think her and Isaac were second cousins. I always get the second and third cousin rule. So they were related, but apparently not too close related to get married. Sort of like Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Only they were more distant than that. Anyway, she shows up, and she's a young woman. She's very beautiful. She's a virgin, and no man has known her. I'm not sure that's to emphasize. She went down the well and filled her pitcher, and he comes to her and says, please give me a drink of your water.

What does she do then? She does exactly what the LEAs are to ask God to have her do. She says, take a drink. She sees these 10 camels standing there and says, well, great! I'll give your camels a drink also. Now, many years of my life, I just read over that and said, big deal. When we think of watering animals, we think you go up and doot doot doot.

Water runs in. They didn't have plumbing. She had some type of a gourd or a pot or whatever. They had to lower down in a well. You know how much water weighs? I learned this when I worked at the water plant down in Big Sandy. It weighs about 8.5 pounds per gallon. If you ever filled a 5-gallon bucket with water and walked along with it, that stuff is heavy.

It's hard work. She just voluntarily said, I'll pour out water for all of your camels. It probably wasn't just one bucket's worth. Camels, having gone all that distance, I bet they slurped down the water. Going back to my days at the water plant in Big Sandy, we had to make sure the water was flowing to the cattle feeds out there. Every now and then they'd break down. We'd go out to fix them.

I'd say, where did all this water go? There was so much. My boss said, you don't know how cows work. They go up there to get a drink and they suck down gallons of it all at once. I'm guessing camels that haven't drank in a while. They do the same thing. What I'm saying is, Rebecca did some heavy manual labor. She really worked. And L.A. Azar is probably just stunned, thinking, oh, that's my job. I'm supposed to be doing the work.

So anyway, he's impressed. He says, tell me whose daughter are you? I've lost track of where I am. In verse 23, whose daughter are you? Can we stay at your father's house? She reveals to him, basically, yeah, I'm Abraham's great niece. Only she doesn't say it like that because she's never met Abraham. He's been long gone. And he says, the other is room to stay.

And then in verse 26, the man, I said, L.A. Azar, the e-bed, bowed his head down and worshipped the eternal. That's the first thought then in his mind was to worship God. And he said, blessed be the eternal God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his mercy and his truth towards my master. As for me being in the way, the eternal led me to the house of my master's brethren. And the story proceeds from there.

She runs back to tell her family. And her brother, Laban, who has his own story a little later in the book, comes running in. And Laban just has an eye for the money. I love it. He walks up and sees the nose ring and the bracelets. I skipped over the nose ring. But that's partly because I still don't get that. Pulls out a nose ring of what, two or three shekels and puts it in her nose, I guess.

I don't know if that gives me a funny image. Some of you it doesn't, some of you it doesn't. But anyways, Laban says all that and says, come on in, come visit our house. And, of course, Eliezer goes there. They unload the camels. They provide straw and water. Verse 33, food is set before them. And he says, no, I can't eat until I've told about my errand.

I'm not going to relax or do anything. I've got to fulfill the mission that I've been given. He's very loyal to his master, Abraham. Remember, loyal to the guy who replaced him from being heir. He's on a mission to get a wife for the guy that took his place. And he doesn't seem to have any ill thoughts of that whatsoever. And he makes sure they know who he is. He said, I'm not the rich guy. These camels and all this jewelry and stuff isn't mine. He says, I'm Abraham's slave. The eternal has blessed my master greatly. And he's become great. He's given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male and female servants. And one of them. And donkeys.

Sorry, sorry that I thought of Shrek. And donkey? And Sarah, my master's wife, bore him a son when she was old. And he's given him all that he has. Abraham's already turned over everything to Isaac. And there's an important point we'll come to at the end of this story. And then he relays the story. He explains exactly what he had done about how he'd come to the well and he wasn't sure which woman he'd asked to be Isaac's wife. And so he explained, I prayed that God would make it the one who would offer to water all my camels. And here Rebecca came and she did it. So tell me, what are you going to do?

And in verse 50, Laban and Bethan were said, well, the thing comes from God, from the eternal. We can't speak to you either good or bad. Here's Rebecca. Take her and go. Let her be your master's son's wife as the eternal was spoken. And it came to pass in verse 52 here. When Abraham's servant heard these words, once again, he worshipped the eternal, bowing himself down to the earth. That was his first reaction. It seems every good blessing he has, he first thinks to thank and worship God. Do you think of that as a slave who's doing something for his master because his master owns him and he's making him do it? It strikes me that the relationship had somehow risen above that. They'd become a lot more.

Let's see, I've gone past about three or four pages of my notes.

Oh, yeah, I do want to look at the end of the story, though, because, oh, matter of fact, almost missed. Oh, yes, he brings out gold and silver in jewelry, gives her precious things. They eat, drink, they have a meal in verse 54. Then they arose in the morning and he said, send me away to my master. I want to get this job done. Let me go back. He doesn't say, boy, I don't want to go back to him. You know, and I've told Sue a lot of times with my new boss there, but tons of said, oh, I don't feel so much like going to work today. I'm glad Eliezer had a better attitude than I have some mornings. But the brother, her brother and her mother said, well, let the young woman stay with us for a few days, at least 10, and after that she'll go.

Now, what do you think Eliezer? When I read that, I thought, boy, you know, they're saying, let's stay for 10 days. Let us celebrate. He could have said, well, this is my time for a vacation. Now, 10 days, I'm not Laban's servant. I'm Abraham's, so I can live high. I can have good meals, relax. I've been overdue for a vacation. But he doesn't. He says, no, don't hinder me since the Eternal has prospered my way. Send me away that I may go to my master. And they're taken aback. They're surprised by this.

So they call Rebecca and they say, well, are you going to go with them? Okay, I will. And they head on out. Now, getting to a conclusion, they're down in verse 62. They've traveled all the way from Mesopotamia. Now, Isaac comes out by the way of Beer-le-Heroi, if I'm saying that right. For he dwelt in the south, and Isaac went out to meditate in the field in the evening. He lifted his eyes and looked. There were the camels coming. So on the horizon, he sees this row of camels. This is a big event. Now, something's coming in.

And, of course, the people on the camels see, oh, there's a guy out there. And Rebecca says to Eliezer, who's this man walking out to meet us? And the servant says, it's that rotten scoundrel who took my place as heir. No, he doesn't say that. And he doesn't say, it's the son of my master. He says, it's my master. Remember, earlier in his account, when he was talking to Laban and Nahor, or Bethul, he said, Abraham is old.

He's given everything he has to Isaac. That included Eliezer. Apparently, Abraham had given everything to Isaac. Eliezer was serving Abraham, but he already belonged to Isaac and considered Isaac his master as well. Once again, like I said, Isaac, the guy who had taken his place as heir. And so she took a veil and covered herself for being modest before the wedding.

The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. He comes back and he reports to Isaac. And apparently, with no ill will and no second thoughts. And of course, Isaac then takes Rebecca to be his wife and they live happily ever after. I said, I love that story. Just if you want to focus on Rebecca and Isaac, it's pretty neat. But Eliezer, whose name isn't even listed here, what a fabulous example for all of us. I think of the lessons we can learn. Of course, loyalty and diligence.

He accepted his position. He didn't try to take advantage of even justifiable excuses to take a break and relax. And the greatest lesson of all, I think, that I've tried to emphasize, Eliezer worshipped and trusted God. He referred to him as the God of his master Abraham, but it was obvious that Eliezer thought of him as the God. And he's the only one I'm going to pray to. I'm not worshipping him just because he's Abraham's God, but because he's the God who made everything.

He's the one I want to worship. And of course, God answered his prayers. These are certainly traits that we can emulate and we should. Not only as God's servants, but as people who will sometimes be serving other people. We want to be loyal and diligent, and at the same time be serving God as we do. The person I want to consider next is in a somewhat unique position.

We're not going to spend as much time on him, but we're going to meet him first as a servant. And then we're going to see later on, time passes, and he has a servant serving him. This person is Elisha the prophet. Now, remember, Elisha and Elijah have very similar names. And of course, Elisha wasn't always the prophet. If you want to turn to 1 Kings 19, we're going to come in towards the end of a story. And I can just recap, because we don't really want to tell Elijah's story, but to understand Elisha, it's good to know Elijah's story.

And that's the one where you'll remember Elijah was a powerful servant of God. And God had him call for a drought and went on for three years, and that led to him having a showdown with the priests of Baal up on Mount Carmel. And he challenged them to a really cool challenge. He said, okay, you guys build an altar, put a sacrifice on it, and call on your God to burn it up. I'll build an altar and put a sacrifice on it, and I'll call on my God. Now, since there's 400 of you, you go first. And you know, they chant, and they sing, and they cut themselves, and nothing happens, because their God isn't real. They're praying to something that doesn't exist. And when they've had their say, Elijah prays calmly and quietly, and God sends fire down, burns up the sacrifice, the altar, the stones all around it. And then, so Elijah then directs the people to slay those false prophets. Then he prays to God to send rain to end the drought. I mean, he's doing these amazing, fabulous, great miracles. He does all this, but by that time, he's exhausted. I think he's physically exhausted, and apparently emotionally and mentally, because soon afterwards, Queen Jezebel sends a message to him saying, I'm going to kill you the same way you killed those prophets. And he falls apart. He takes off running, so I've got to get out of here. He flees all the way down to Mount Sinai.

Fortunately, God is patient, and I'm trying to sum this up because I want to get to Elisha's story, but to get to Elisha, we've got to see how we got there. God is patient with him. He shows his great power with a thunderstorm and fire and wind, but then he comes and speaks to Elijah in that still, small voice, that calm voice that says, Elijah, what are you doing here? Elijah says, well, I'm the only one left, and I'm disheartening. I'm the only one left serving you. They're trying to kill me, and God says, no, no, no. You're not the only one left. I've got 7,000 out there. I'd better double check and make sure. Is it 7,000? Okay, thanks. Yes, there it is in verse 18. I was going to pick up in verse 19. 7,000 who haven't bowed, to Baal, or kissed him. So he departed there. Oh, wait. But he gives him a job before that. In verse 15, the Eternal says to him, Go return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus, and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as king over Syria. Assignment number 1. Then you shall anoint Jehu, the son of Nimsi, as king over Israel. Assignment number 2. And the third one's going to surprise you. Then I want you to anoint Elisha, son of Shefat, of Abel Mihola. You're going to anoint him as prophet in your place. You're going to anoint someone who's going to replace you eventually. Oh, okay. Well, we drop down in verse 19. So he departed from there, and he found Elisha, the son of Shefat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him. Now, that's pretty impressive. Twelve yoke of oxen. Oxen are big, powerful, and he's down there. He's with the twelfth. So Elisha was not... I know, he's not the image that I think of as a scholar. He probably looked nothing like me. He was a big, burly, strong guy. And Elijah passed by and threw his mantle on him, and he left the oxen, ran after him. But he did have one request, and said, please, let me go back and kiss my family goodbye. And Elijah had second thoughts. Well, of course. What am I doing? Go back... You know, he slaughtered the oxen, some of them, not all twelve yoke, that made a feast, and they boiled their flesh, and they ate. And then he arose, and he followed Elijah, and became his servant. Now, that's when the new King James became his servant, I believe. The old King James says, he ministered to him. He became his shireth. Now, wait a minute. You might say, well, God said to anoint him to be prophet in his place. How do you do that? So you anoint him, but he doesn't say, okay, you're as good as me. I'm going to teach you everything I know. He goes, and he's beginning to become his personal servant, menial servant. And if we're not sure on what it means to be such a menial servant, let's skip ahead to 2 Kings 3. 2 Kings 3 and verse 11.

This is one of those scriptures that stuck out in my head, even one of the first ones I thought of when I was thinking of this sermon. So I think, well, what all did Elisha have to do to learn how to take over Elijah's place? Now, this here in 2 Kings 3, this is happening after Elijah has left, and Elisha is in the job. But we're going to see some people, it's well known how he served. Verse 11. Now, this is where the king of Israel and the king of Judah get together, and they're thinking about going to battle. So the king of Israel, who doesn't really believe in the true God, calls several of these prophets of these idols to come and tell them what they should do. But Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, says, well, isn't there a prophet of the eternal here? You know, the true God that we can inquire of the eternal from him? So one of the servants of the king of Israel answered and said, well, there's Elisha, the son of Shabbat here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah. I like that phrase, and it just goes back and past him, but he poured water on Elijah's hands. So imagine they were doing something dirty, Elijah says, well, I need to wash my hands. Come over and pour water over them. That's his job. Once again, remember the heavy water. Come, okay, here you go, boss. You know, let me pour water on your hands so you can wash them. Not some exalted position or saying, yes, you're going to take my place and I want to give you the best of everything, but doing menial service. You know, he poured water on Elijah's hands, probably helped empty the chamber pot. Remember, no running water, no plumbing. You know, he did all these menial things.

But that shouldn't surprise us. I made a note. I was thinking, I've had assignments in my job where I've done things like that. We have our shittaker program in the summer that I've always thought was really cool. We have scholars come in and portray historical characters, and I've been there on hand, and I'm often designated as the program director. Ooh, that sounds impressive. Or the road manager, stage manager. But often what I'm doing is, this guy's getting ready to go on stage, and he says, man, I'm thirsty, can you go get me a Coke? You bet. I run and I'm looking for a Coke, you know? Later on, I might be setting up chairs or giving them a ride to someplace. That's the kind of thing you want to do.

And it's an important lesson for us. We aspire to be kings and priests. That's our goal. The Bible tells us you're going to be kings and priests. Well, how do you get to be a king and a priest? Maybe by a method similar to becoming a prophet. And Elisha trained to be a prophet by doing menial service. So, we should maybe prepare to be menial servants right now, and not feel bad about it.

Now, of course, Elisha is an example, but we need to remember Christ's teaching. We can learn from Elisha, but also, Christ said, remember we said earlier, whoever will be great among you, be the servant. You want to be great? You want to be a king and a priest? Do it by becoming the menial servant, the lowest one in the household, who's willing, not only willing, but just told. You wash people's feet. It's expected. Now, the story of Elisha continues long beyond this. And if you read this section of Scripture, you see a lot of amazing miracles. There's just a few chapters where Elisha is just performing one astounding miracle after another. Of course, it's not Elisha, but God working through him. It sounds almost like a fairy tale. They're so dramatic. And I thought, boy, it's enough to make you say, did all this really happen? Well, it's in the Bible. It must have happened. But why? My speculation—I'm getting a little off my subject—but I think this was in Israel, not Judah. And Israel had already drifted so far from God at that time. I suspect that God was using these great miracles through his servant to show people, hey, there is a real God. You're not paying attention to me, but I'm still here. And the reason I bring it up, I think, if that was the reason, which is just speculation on my part, but if it was, maybe that'll be happening again in the near future. The modern descendants of Israel are drifting further and further away from God. It wouldn't surprise me if he starts working great miracles at the hands of his servants, including perhaps people right here, to show that there is still a real God, and he's working through some people.

Well, we don't know when, but at some point, Elisha obtained a servant of his own. He'd been Elijah's servant. Now he's the prophet, and he has a servant who serves him named Gehazi or Gehazi. I never have figured out exactly how he pronounced it, but I like Gehazi because I like the long A. He's a shoroth, a personal attendant, and we're going to be looking in 1 Kings 4 to catch up with first meet Gehazi.

But we'll see some of this. Remember, Elijah traveled quite a bit, and apparently he's passed several times through a town called Shunim, and there's a family that took him in. He said, you can stay here with us. As a matter of fact, it happens so often that this one family, the woman said, let's set him up his own room, and we'll put in a little washstand and a candlestick and a bed, and he won't have to come and check with us first.

It's just there for him all the time. There's not a motel six in town. Let's set this up for him. Now, Elisha appreciates this. So we look in 2 Kings 4. We'll begin in verse 11. It happened one day that he came there and he turned into the upper room, this is the place that they set up for him, and he says to Gehazi, his servant, call this Shunimite woman. So what's Gehazi do? Well, he's the gopher. Go down and get her. He doesn't say, will you please, or I'll give you extra money.

No, you're the servant. I need you to go do this. And of course he goes and he does it. And he said to him, saying out of her, look, you've been concerned with all this care. What can I do for you?

Want me to speak to the king on your behalf or the commander of the army? He says, no, I dwell among my own people. He says, I'm okay. And so Elisha says, well, what's to be done for her? Now, Gehazi is a gopher, but he doesn't have to keep silent. He says, well, she actually, she doesn't have any son. And her husband's old. I'm not sure the husband doesn't play a very big role in this story. Maybe the woman was more of a talker or whatever.

So, you know, Gehazi suggests this. The idea. Call her. Gehazi, once again, the gopher, she comes. He says, well, about this time next year, you're going to have a son. He said, ah, don't kid around with me. You know, my husband's old. I'm old. But, you know, and this might remind us of the story with Abraham and Sarah. And a year later, she has a child. Now, we're going to skip ahead in the story because interesting thing happens that the child will fall sick and actually die. Verse 25. So, the Shunammite woman, we never know what her name is.

She says, well, I'm going to go talk to the prophet, to Elisha. So, she departed, and she went to the man of God at Mount Carmel. And when the man of God saw her, he said to Gehazi, Gehazi's his servant, so he has to be there with him.

He says, look, there's that Shunammite woman. You know, we're not near Shunamm. What's she doing here? He said, please go down and greet her. Ask her if she's well on her husband and the child.

So, once again, Gehazi, run down there, whether you feel like it or not, and ask her how she's doing. She doesn't actually answer Gehazi. So, that's okay, but she runs up to Elisha. In verse 27, when she came to the man of God at the hill, she caught him by the feet. So, she's coming down to grab hold of him and beg him to help her. Gehazi doesn't know what's going on. So, it says, Gehazi came near to push her away.

There's another role for the servant, which I don't know if Elisha said, do this if this ever happens, but Gehazi wanted to protect his master. That's my boss there. Don't go, you know, for all he knows, a woman's trying to mug him or something. So, he goes to push her away. Elisha says, no, wait, leave her alone. She's in deep distress. The Lord didn't reveal to me. And, you know, it continues. She said, did I ask a son?

Did I say, don't deceive me? Turns out they find out that the child is either very ill or died. So, Elisha now is going to give Gehazi one of the most important jobs he ever has. In verse 29, he says to Gehazi, get yourself ready, take my staff in your hand, and be on your way. If anyone, if you meet anyone, don't greet him. If anyone greets you, don't answer. So, basically, don't get distracted by anything.

Go straight to the child and lay my staff on his face. And, basically, Elisha is going to follow with the mother. They can't travel quite as far. A big role for Gehazi. You know, he's just running messages so far. It looks like he's just the gopher. But, apparently, Elisha trusts him enough to say, take my staff, here's your assignment.

It's not quite going to find a wife for Isaac, but it's a pretty big one. Now, in the story, it turns out that this does not bring the child back. Gehazi comes back and tells him nothing's happening. Now, I wonder, was it because God wanted to work just through Elisha and not the servant? Or, did Gehazi lack an element of faith and obedience that God wanted to have before he would work that miracle? And I'm only suggesting that now, because we'll see a little later that Gehazi does slip up a little bit.

And, of course, I wasn't planning on reading about the resurrection, but Elisha does come in and God works the miracle through his hands to bring the child back to life. But I want to skip ahead to chapter 5 to see, as I said, Gehazi has a little overcoming to do. In chapter 5, we're going to meet another character. That's why I love the Old Testament. There's all these great characters. And here we meet Naaman. Naaman is not an Israelite. He's a Syrian, and he's the commander of the Syrian army, a very important, powerful man. But he's got a problem. He's developed a skin disease. He's got leprosy. Now, in the Bible, leprosy can connote several different things. I wonder if we know all the diseases. I'm just suggesting this because he wasn't totally ostracized. He's still able to do his job, but it's something pretty serious. Now, in verse 2, we see the Syrians, in one of the raids, they brought back a captive, a young girl from Israel, and she was the servant of Naaman's wife. Like I said, everybody in the Old Testament seems to have a servant. But this young Israelite girl says, if only my master were with the prophet who's in Samaria, he'd heal him of his leprosy.

Now, she was partly right. You could get it. Elisha was there, and God worked miracles through him. She should have known that it's God that does the healing. But at any rate, Naaman passes this message on to his master, the king, and he says, well, that's great. So he sends Naaman to the king of Israel with a letter. And I love this story. He shows up, presents this letter, and says, when you get this, I want you to heal my servant of his leprosy. And the king says, what? Who does this guy think I am? Oh my God, to make a live and kill? I can't heal leprosy. And it says he rips his clothing, because he figures the king of Syria is trying to pick a fight. He sent this guy to me to heal him, and he knows I can't heal. He's just trying to find an excuse to go to war against us. Sorry, I'm summarizing, but if we look in verse 8 of chapter 5, So it was when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel torn his clothes, He sent to the king, saying, Why have you torn your clothes? Please let him come to me, And then he'll know that there is a prophet in Israel. Here's something I wonder. He says, Elisha heard that he ripped his clothes. Was it very much later, being modern day, I envision that Elisha was watching C-SPAN, or CNN News, And he says, The king rips his clothes, and so he gets on the phone and says, Oh, you don't have to do that. But then again, they didn't have CNN, they didn't have a cell phone. I suspect that actually God relayed the message to him to get it done faster. We'll see later that he has a way of knowing things that happen that he doesn't see on his own. But anyways, the king sends Nahum into Elisha. Nahum, in verse 9, went with the horses in chariot, He stood at the door of Elisha's house, and Elisha sent a messenger to him, I wonder if the messenger might have been Gehazi again. Go wash into Jordan seven times, and your flesh will be restored to you, and you'll be clean. And Nahum is furious. What? Just go take a bath? I thought he was going to come down and wave his arms and call in the name of his God, and then heal the leprosy. And he says, Are not the Abana and the Farpar the rivers of Damascus far better than any water in Israel? Why can't I wash in them and be clean? I was going to skip over that verse, but I wanted to read Abana and Farpar. I just love those names. Seems we should have a river in Ohio named Farpar. Don't you think? It's not one I could name my next child after, but Farpar is a cool name. Maybe the next dog. Sue's not in here, so she's not going to contradict me on this anyways. As a name and still upset, but one of his servants, who we have no idea who the servant a name is, says, Wait a minute, master, if he'd asked you to do some great Herculean task, you would have tried to do it. How much more than if he says, Just wash and be clean? So the name says, Yeah, you might have something there. He goes and he dips into Jordan seven times, and his skin becomes like a new baby's. Does it say like the new baby? He's the little child, and he's clean. And he comes back to the man of God to Elisha, and he says, This is great. And he stood before him and said, Indeed, now I know there is no God in the earth except in Israel. Now therefore, please take a gift from your servant.

But Elisha said, As the eternal lives before him I stand, I will receive nothing. And he urged him, but he still refused. Remember, Elisha's purpose in this was so they would know there was a prophet, a prophet of the true God. So he's not doing it for money. Money's not the concern here. He had the role to represent God and make people know that there was a God. So Naaman goes on, and he still wants to worship God, so he asks if he can take some dirt back with him. Because the people of those days had the idea that gods were attached to the ground. He had the feeling Naaman's impressive he was healed, but he still doesn't understand the true God. So he says, Let me take some dirt, but I'm still going to have to go into the house of this idol when my master, the king, goes in because he loons on me. And I love this. So please excuse me when I do that. And in verse 19, Elisha says, Go in peace. I wonder, nowadays he might have said, Whatever. Okay, you're going to go in the house of the idol. Just, okay, have a nice day. But now it gets interesting. Okay, in verse 19, he says in peace, But Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, the man of God, says, Look, my master spared Naaman the Syrian by not receiving from his hands what he brought. But as the eternal lives, I'm going to run after him and take something from him. So Gehazi gets the idea, my boss, he's passing up a good opportunity. He shouldn't have done that. I'm going to go take something from him. So Gehazi pursues Naaman. When Naaman saw him running after him, he got down from his chair and says, Oh, what's going on? Is all well? No, all is well. My master sent me saying, Oh, just now two young men from the prophets have come from the mountains, and please give them each a talent of silver and two chains of garments. Now, I didn't mention earlier, it says that Naaman brought with him ten talents of silver and a whole bunch of gold. So Gehazi's not getting a real greedy. He didn't ask for the ten talents. He didn't ask for any of the gold, just a couple of the talents, a couple changes of the raiment. Just a little. That should be okay. We healed you of your leprosy. And Naaman says, oh, he said he asked for one, actually. So he's being even more... he's not being greedy. And Naaman says, No, take two. And he binds them up and sends back two changes of raiment. Verse 24, he came to the citadel, and he took them from their hands, stored them away, and let them in go. And then he went and stood before his master, Elisha. And Elisha said to him, Where did you go, Gehazi? I said, Oh, I didn't go anywhere. I'm sure he said it just like that. Or, you know, looking at him, Oh, I didn't go anywhere.

And he said, Didn't my heart go with you when the man turned back from his chariot to meet you? Like he knew the king had ripped his garment. Like I said, he didn't need cable TV or satellite. God revealed him to these things. Didn't my heart go with you? And he said, Is it time to receive money or to receive clothing? Olive groves, vineyard sheep, oxen, and male servants? Therefore, there's going to be a punishment. The leprosy of Naaman will cling to you and your descendants forever. And he went out from their presence, lepros, as white as snow.

Not so good for Gehazi. Let's look at some quick lessons. One, and there's some lesser lessons, some inferior lessons, ones that aren't quite as big a deal that I think are still worth noting. We've seen from Gehazi's example, sometimes a servant has to be willing to be a gopher. Just be a messenger to go do what you're told. Sometimes the servant has to act on their master's behalf. Sometimes you might get a big assignment and you have to stand in. But, of course, remembering that you're still the servant. Sometimes a servant needs to protect his master. Like when the woman grabbed for Elisha's feet and Gehazi's ready to push her away. Nowadays we might think of the secret service agents who are willing to take a bullet for the president.

But the most important lesson I want us to take from this is that a servant must live up to as high a standard, as high a godly standard, as his master needs to. The servant doesn't get to choose what those standards are, but he still has to live by them. Gehazi thought he would set the standard and say, you know, we can take a little money, we should get some reward for this. And he was wrong. And he suffered a penalty from it. Having leprosy was not a good thing. So knowing that we're servants, we have to remember the standard is set. We always have to live up to it. But before I leave it in those kind of dejected terms, I want to think of another lesson, because a servant can fail, but still be forgiven. You can fall down and make a mistake as bad as Gehazi did, and still have some respite. You can repent. If you look ahead to chapter 8, 2 Kings 8, we're going to look in verse 4, because Gehazi shows up again. Here, the king, and this king that we've been looking at is the son of Ahab, I believe, Jehoram, who was a fairly young man. He was impressed by Elisha. And here, he's talking to Gehazi. The king talked with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, and saying, please tell me all the great things Elisha has done. Now, this is quite a ways after Gehazi was punished. But here, he's still referred to as the servant of Elisha. I wonder, did he repent? Was he restored to his position as being a servant? I'd like to speculate on whether he was healed of the delipress, like Miriam was after she was punished for questioning Moses, although the punishment said that it was going to cling to him and his offspring. So, I don't know. The Bible doesn't tell us. But I like to think that Gehazi learned his lesson. He's messed up. But it looks like he still got to be the servant of the man of God and carried on.

One other thing I'll point out here, though, is unlike Elisha, remember when Elisha served Elijah, it was a particular training so that he would eventually take that place. That wasn't the case for Gehazi. He was destined to be a servant. And just like with Eliezer, he needed to be okay with that. You know, it's okay to be the servant. It doesn't always have to be a stepping stone to something else. There we go, Mr. Brandt. I don't think I am going to finish that early. I'll remember this for next week. Because I've got one more servant I want to talk about. And this is one of my favorite examples. And we can go through it a little more quickly. But I think this particular one is one of the best demonstrations of someone who is a servant but is preparing to do something more and better. And that's the example of Joshua. Joshua is called Moses' servant or assistant. The New King James says assistant a lot. He's a charrette. Not a bondman. But he is Moses' servant while Moses is God's servant. I think I mentioned earlier, as you look through the Bible and you're such a detailed nut as I am, I literally counted how many times the Bible said, Moses the servant of the Lord. And it was nearly 40 times. And then a lot of times you see Joshua the servant of Moses.

Let's turn to... we're going to go back to Exodus.

Exodus 24. I want to point out, Joshua did some things that might seem fairly prestigious. Moses gave him some good jobs. But being a servant, that menial servant, sometimes you have some things that aren't so impressive. We're going to look... Exodus 24. This is after Exodus 20, which we all know is the giving of the Ten Commandments. We know God told Moses, get everybody ready. Cordon off the mountain. I'm going to come down. And God comes down and the mountain shakes and there's smoke and fire. And God speaks to Israel. And He gives them the Ten Commandments. And then He gives Moses some more instructions. He says, now go. Are the people willing to enter a covenant? And the people say, yes, we agree. And they have a sacrifice and sprinkle blood on them and blood on the book. And then they tell Moses, okay, we want to be God's people, but please don't have Him talk to us anymore. We can't take this. It's scaring us to death. So why don't you go talk to God and then come back and tell us what He says. And God says, yeah, that's okay. I'm good with that, Moses. And I want you to come up. Let's look in verse 12. Exodus 24 and verse 12. The Eternal says to Moses, Come up to Me on the mountain and be there. I'll give you tablets of stone and the law on the command which I have written that you may teach them. So Moses arose with his assistant, or his servant, Joshua. And Moses went up to the mountain of God. Now you might think, oh, Joshua, he's going up there to meet with God with Moses. He must be important. Then I think the next verse gives that some ways because Moses turns back and says to the elders, to the really important people, He says, Okay, you wait here till we come back, and indeed Aaron and her are with you. If anybody has a difficulty, let them go to them. So it's Aaron and her and these elders who are the important people and prestigious, Joshua is just following up Moses to be a servant, to do whatever he needs to do. Now I've wondered sometimes in reading this, because we know God would talk to Moses for 40 days. Did Joshua get to listen in? Was he part of that? The Bible doesn't tell us, but I suspect it might be more like when Jesus Christ brought the disciples. We know on his last night, he brought them all to the Garden of Gethsemane, but he said, You wait here and I'm going to go over and pray. So he left them behind. He went on. I envision that. Moses and Joshua go up, because we see in verse 15, Moses went up into the mountain and a cloud covered the mountain. I sort of see him saying, Joshua, okay, you wait here. I've got to go over and talk to God. And Moses disappears into the cloud. And what does Joshua do?

Joshua is there to be his servant. So Joshua waits. He's there to do what he's told to do. And I presume if he doesn't have any instructions, he'll wait until he has instructions. Now, let's look ahead and we'll see another example of that in chapter 33. Exodus 33, and we'll start in verse 10.

Now, this is after Moses came back down and discovered that they decided to make a golden calf, and were having a pretty wild party. So he has to punish them, and he's upset. And then Moses implores God not to abandon all of them. In verse 10, all the people saw the pillar of the cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and Moses set up a tabernacle where he could meet with God outside the camp, because the people had messed up so bad. So the eternal spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend, and then he would return to the camp. But his servant Joshua, the young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.

Moses talks to God and goes back to the people. Joshua, his job, you wait here. You stay here and do the menial jobs, do what I tell you to do. But he's serving Moses. He's not in some exalted position.

Now, over time, Joshua would get to do more and more.

Yeah, there's one case where he'll defend Moses somewhat. Let's go to Numbers 11. We'll see Joshua still being a servant to Moses, but sort of attaining a higher and higher level of trust and authority. And this is the case where Moses is kind of getting worn down. Dealing with these Israelites is kind of rough. And he tells God, I can't do this anymore. I need some help. 11, verse 24. Oh, no wonder. I'm looking in 10, verse 24. 11, verse 24. So Moses went out and told the people the words. Oh, what happened before that? God had said, okay, Moses, call 70 people, and I'll put some of the spirit that I've given you. I'll put it on them, and they can help you. So Moses does. He goes out and tells the people the words of the Lord. He gathers 70 men of the elders of the people, placed them around the tabernacle. And the Eternal came down from a cloud, spoke to him, and took the spirit that was upon him, and placed it upon the 70 elders. And it happened when the spirit rested on them that they prophesied. Although they didn't do so again. There's a special miracle. Kind of, I would say, similar to the speaking in tongues in Acts, chapter 2. But we know there's a case where two of the men had supposed to come, but they didn't. But God put the spirit on them anyways, and so they're out in the camp prophesying. In verse 26, two men remained in the camp. One was El-Dad, the other was Me-Dad. Nice, they had rhyming names. And the spirit rested on them. They hadn't gone to the camp, but they prophesied anyways. And a young man ran and told Moses, is it El-Dad and Me-Dad are prophesying in the camp. So Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, still assistant, says, Moses, my Lord, forbid them. Don't let them do that. Joshua is doing something similar to what Gehazi did. He's trying to protect his master. But I just realized I skipped over something else there. Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant. Too many S's there. His assistant, one of his choice men. What does it mean, one of his choice men? I'm guessing it means one of the seventy that he chose. So Joshua has risen up, so to speak. He's still the assistant, but he was chosen probably to be one of those seventy. So he's still concerned about Moses' reputation, though. He didn't say, oh, I'm one of the seventy. Now I can, you know, I'm moving up. I don't have to worry about Moses. No, he's still worried. He doesn't want anyone to be presumptuous and take Moses' spot.

I'll just relate another important thing Joshua will do a little later. We know that when they sent the twelve scouts into the Promised Land, one from each tribe of Israel, Joshua, went representing Ephraim. And of course, the story is well known. Ten of those scouts brought back a false report and said, oh, we can't do this. Joshua and Caleb alone said, no, we can. We can take this land and God will help us do it. But the people of Israel didn't listen to them. They listened to the other ten. They refused to go in and God said, that's it. None of you guys are going in. I'm going to take your children in. And the only people that are over twenty years old that are going to make it in the Promised Land are Joshua and Caleb. It's sometimes a good thing to be faithful and loyal. And so God later says, Joshua is going to be the one to lead them in. Now, by the time that would happen, Joshua wouldn't be serving Moses anymore. He'd be elevated. Let's look to Numbers, chapter 27, as I do need to wrap this up.

Numbers, chapter 27, verse 12.

The Eternal says to Moses, go open to Mount Abarim and see the land that I've given to the children of Israel. And when you've seen it, you're going to be gathered to your people as Aaron your brother was. In other words, your life is going to come to an end because you sinned against me. But in verse 15, Moses spoke to the Eternal saying, Well, let the God of spirits of all flesh set a man over the congregation, who may go out before them and go in before them and lead them out, bring them in so that they won't be like sheep without a shepherd. And the Eternal says to Moses, okay, take Joshua, the son of Nun. He's a man with whom is the Spirit? Now I want you to lay your hand on him, and I'm going to give him authority.

Verse 21, he'll stand before the L.A.A.s are the priests who will inquire, and they'll go out and do all these things. So Moses does. So I wonder, was Moses surprised? He didn't ask for it to be Joshua. But maybe he wasn't. Maybe he knew Joshua. When God said, give the job to Joshua, Moses might have said, Good, I'm glad for that. I hope so. He knew Joshua pretty well by that time. And we'll see if we skip. Actually, I want to look to the book of Joshua and look to the very end, because I mentioned that Joshua would take over from Moses. God will start dealing with Joshua as he did Moses. But even after that, sometimes you'd still hear Joshua be referred to as the servant of Moses. Moses was the servant of God, and then Joshua was the servant of Moses.

But in verse, Joshua chapter 24 and verse 29, It came to pass after these things that Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being 110 years old. Finally, in the end, Joshua inherited a new title. Somewhere along the way, he became more than Moses' servant. He became the servant of God himself, just as Moses had done before him. So let's consider. I'd love to dwell more on Joshua, but he deserves a sermon on his own, I think. What does this mean to all of us? What do we have to take from this? For one thing, we've got some good examples, but we want to keep in mind that all of us have a boss. We're going to have someone over us. Only a couple more scriptures if you'll turn to Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes chapter 5 and verse 8. One of the reasons we know that we have a boss, we see it here.

Solomon was the wisest person ever, and he'd noticed this. He says, if you see the oppression of the poor and the violent perversion of justice and righteousness in the province, don't marvel at the matter. For a high official watches over a high official, and higher officials are over them. So even if you're a high official, there's someone over top of you. Once again, it reminds me of Jesus, that case where the centurion came to ask for healing for a servant. Jesus was going to go and the servant said, oh, you don't need to come to my house. He said, I'm a man under authority. I have servants under me. We often focus on him having the servants under him, but he said, I'm a man under authority. I've got a boss who gives me orders, and I give other people orders. I know how this works. Everybody has a boss.

And we all want to do the right thing. Let's turn to Colossians 3. Colossians 3 and verse 22.

Once again, this can apply to all of us because we all have a boss. Bond servants, obey in all things your master is according to flesh. Not just with eye service as men pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. Peter reminded us, served the good bosses, but also the bad, the froward ones. The Bible gives us a lot of examples. They said, Eliezer, Joshua, fabulous examples. Gehazi gives us a good example and shows us some of what we don't want to do as well. But the Bible talks about servants a lot because we reading it are to be servants. I'm going to read Romans 6 verse 16-18. It tells us, we are going to be servants to whoever or whatever we obey. We can be servants to sin and end up dead, or servants to righteousness, slaves to righteousness, and have eternal life. Our highest goal is to be servants of God. But that doesn't preclude the possibility of also being a servant to another person. In such cases, we are going to have to serve another person, it will behoove us to choose well whom we are going to serve, as much as we have that choice. And then, serve well. Once the choice is made, you have someone you are serving, serve. Serve well. Because our hope is eventually we want to hear these words from Jesus Christ. We are longing to hear, he says, Well done, you good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.

Amen.